I’ve been a journalist for more than 15 years. Almost from the start, try as I might to keep a wide gulf between “Just James” and “James the news guy,” I found myself regularly encountering people who wanted to know how being black affected my work.
I’ve always thought it was an odd question and at times have tried to play it off with humor by deflecting and saying things like, “It’s more complicated to be a journalist who’s left-handed!” Ha! Get it? Both are physical characteristics that don’t speak to my ability to write and don’t give any hint as to how my mind works.
In the real world, for reasons I get and reasons that sometimes baffle me, physical appearance matters to so many people—at least when it comes to whether and how they judge you. So I try to address it as best I can.
It shouldn’t be complicated, right? When the debate or discussion has to do with good or evil, right or wrong, etc., race should matter when history and heritage are the subjects. It shouldn’t matter when character and behavior are the subjects. Me being black doesn’t make me smart or evil any more than does having big feet or above average height make me funny or kind. Everything in between, I guess, is a gray area where race is concerned. It would take days to discuss how comedians use race to explain away personality quirks, how politicians sometimes use racial perceptions—positive and negative—as tools, or whether educators and law enforcement officers allow it to influence how they deal with certain people.
I recently began working on a journalistic project that will explore life as a black male in these United States—no shine, no polish, no glitter, no glam, no excuses, no self-deprecation. Just an honest look at reality and perception and where the two intersect. It has been the most difficult project I’ve ever undertaken as a writer and reminds me of one of my favorite episodes of Law & Order back in the day when actor Richard Brooks was playing Assistant District Attorney Paul Robinette on the show. In the episode, Robinette found himself prosecuting a case steeped in race-related debate and hints of institutional racism. In a moment of raw honesty, he told his boss, Executive ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), that he was struggling with this rhetorical question: Was he—Robinette—a prosecutor who happened to be black, or was he a black prosecutor?
I get the question and Robinette’s struggle with it much better today than I did when the episode aired (I think I was still a teenager then!). He wasn’t complaining that being a black man conflicted with being a prosecutor. He was acknowledging that race or skin color, no matter how literally superficial, is powerful — powerful enough that it has made and broken individuals, friendships, relationships, elections, business deals, etc. And he was acknowledging that “managing” the subject of race is a grave responsibility.
Life isn’t a TV show, unless it’s a “reality” TV show. And even then the definition and all reasonable interpretations of “reality” are stretched thinner than Saran Wrap.
That fateful question drove Robinette to quit. I’m not going anywhere, because I know the answer: I’m just me. One guy. One husband. One father. And none of those “features” comes with a particular look.
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This post was previously published on Medium and is republished with permission from the author.
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